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For much of this season, Cowboys fans and local media mentally circled Dec.
23 as the coach Sean Payton Bowl at Cowboys Stadium.

Until recently, it loomed as a matchup of Payton’s kind-of employer New
Orleans Saints vs. Payton’s potential next employer Dallas Cowboys.

That storyline melted as coach Jason Garrett steered the Cowboys through a
minefield of injuries and tragedy to five victories in six games.

Dallas shares the NFC East lead, Garrett’s job security appears to have
solidified and Sunday’s focal point is the playoff race, but awkwardness
lingers.

The facts remain that Payton is a North Texas resident. He has strong Cowboys
ties dating to his 2003-05 tenure as an assistant under Bill Parcells. And that
Payton’s New Orleans contract is set to expire at season’s end. And that he’s on
NFL suspension for his role in the Saints’ bounty scandal.

The suspension prohibits Payton from so much as texting anyone in the Saints
or Cowboys organizations, never mind making the short drive to watch Sunday’s
game in person.

“Does it give me even more motivation that I know Coach Payton is less than
20 miles away, watching the game on TV, as opposed to a couple hundred miles
away?” Saints quarterback Drew Brees asked.

“No, I guess it doesn’t really make a difference to us. He’s always with us,
even though we haven’t been able to talk and communicate with him. That’s been
difficult. It is what it is, and we’ve tried to manage.”

Without Payton, and with several players and assistant coaches serving
suspensions of varying lengths, the Saints stumbled to an 0-4 start. At 6-8,
they are on the cusp of playoff-race elimination.

After NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Payton’s suspension in April,
Saints owner Tom Benson instructed team officials to hang a huge poster of a
glaring Payton and the words “Do Your Job” on the wall of the team’s practice
facility.

Payton thanked Benson for the public show of loyalty and made the owner
promise that “as soon as I come back,” the poster comes down.

But will he be back? Before his suspension, Payton had agreed to a contract
extension through 2015. On Nov. 4, however, news broke that Goodell had voided
the extension, taking issue with a clause that would have allowed Payton to
leave if general manager Mickey Loomis was suspended, fired or left the
organization.

The news of Payton potentially becoming a free agent at season’s end hit the
Internet hours before the Cowboys lost in Atlanta, falling to 3-5
— another potential distraction through which Garrett and the Cowboys have
fought.

“We have great challenges every Sunday in this league, so we have to make
sure our focus is right and that is something I preach to our team and to our
football players,” Garrett said Wednesday, when asked about the Payton rumors
during a teleconference with New Orleans media.

“Certainly as coaches and individuals, we have to live that as well. There is
always a lot of stuff going on on the periphery. We just have to focus on doing
our job as well as we can do them.”

Time with kids

Payton’s feelings about his contract status, future employment and Sunday’s
game aren’t publically known because he has said little in recent months.

It isn’t as though he has gone into hiding, as evidenced by his sporadic
public appearances. Each time, he’s pleasantly spoken to reporters in
generalities, but apologized that he can’t get discuss many specifics during his
suspension.

In May, after playing a pro-am round with PGA Tour player Ricky Barnes before
the HP Byron Nelson Championship, Payton joked of his golf swing: “If it doesn’t
get any better this off-season, it probably never will.”

Payton also said that day that the most positive aspect of his suspension was
that he would get to attend his teenage daughter Meghan’s cheerleader
competitions and help coach son Connor’s sixth-grade football team.

In June, Payton and his wife of nearly 20 years, Beth, filed dueling divorce
petitions in Tarrant Count.

On Oct. 2, Payton was the guest speaker at the SMU Athletic Forum at the
Hilton Anatole. Most speakers meet separately with local media members, but
Payton declined to do so.

During the forum, in a Q&A format with Cowboys radio voice Brad Sham,
Payton told the packed ballroom that the suspension had become “a blessing and a
positive, in regards to my family,” allowing him to spend quality time with his
children that past football seasons had not afforded.

He got his first NFL assistant’s job, as the Eagles’ quarterback coach, in
1997, a year after Meghan was born. Connor was born in 1999, when Sean was the
Giants’ quarterback coach. Payton was New York’s offensive coordinator from
2000-02, when Garrett was the backup quarterback.

During the SMU Athletic Forum, Payton drew laughs when he said he would
rather answer a question about the bounty scandal than address the possibility
of coaching the Cowboys.

“I had three great years, three important years of my coaching profession,”
he said of his stint in Dallas. “We always valued our time here, and right now
my focus is on staying with New Orleans and really getting back on the sidelines
there. But this is an interesting business and how it unfolds and shapes. …

“Am I doing a good enough job sitting on this fence?”

Still coaching

Brenan Hardy met Payton in 2011, when Sean moved his family from the New
Orleans area to Vaquero, a gated community in Westlake.

The move caused an uproar among New Orleans fans, but Saints management
supported Payton’s decision. Payton explained that he and Beth had dreamed of
settling in North Texas ever since he left the Cowboys.

Hardy’s son and Connor Payton are the same age and have played together on
various youth sports teams the past two years.

Brenan Hardy, a TCU offensive lineman from 1990-92, coaches his son and
Connor Payton in the Liberty Christian Warriors youth football program in
Argyle. During 2011’s fifth-grade season, Sean’s Saints commitments made it
difficult to attend Warriors practices or games.

Hardy said that this spring, Payton approached Hardy with a sheepish smile
and a request.

“Hey, I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but I don’t have a whole lot going
on this fall. I know you’ve got a full staff, but I’d love to help out, whether
it’s cutting oranges or carrying Gatorade or whatever.”

What was Hardy going to do, say “no thanks” to the man who coached New
Orleans to the 2009 season’s Super Bowl title?

Payton watched videotape of Warriors games and installed the offense for the
2012 fall season. The Warriors used the same running-play terminology as
Payton’s Saints.

As fourth-graders, the Warriors won once. Last season, they won half their
games. This season, they advanced to their youth league’s Super Bowl in
Springtown, losing the title game.

After games in area towns, including Decatur, Burleson and Ponder, opposing
coaches and players would ask Payton for autographs and pose for photos. Out of
respect for Payton’s privacy and his wanting to focus on coaching Connor and the
team, the Warriors’ organization at one point had turned down 48 media
requests.

Many coach/dads tend to be excitable during games and practices, but Hardy
said Payton was even-keeled and related easily to the players.